by Domnall Óg
Home >> Angels
If you go to Apple’s online music store and look for songs called ‘Angel’, you will get 692 results.
If you want to read a book connected with angels you could go to the Amazon online bookstore and choose from ten thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven titles.
In 2006 Angel was the twenty-ninth most popular name for a boy and Angela the twenty-fourth most popular name for a girl in Spain. In the USA Angel and Angelina both make it into the top 50.
In Hollywood angels have been represented many times. Perhaps the most endearing example is the angel Clarence in Frank Capra’s 1946 masterpiece It’s a Wonderful Life . He is sent to convince George Bailey (James Stewart) that a man is not a failure if he has friends.
Angels, of course, can be found in architecture and monuments. It is worth looking up at the buildings in most capital cities to see the stone guardians watching us. They can be found on banks and fountains and not only on churches. In England’s Gateshead the local council have recently commissioned sculptor Anthony Gormley OBE to create The Angel of the North – an immense, embracing structure that welcomes people to the Tyneside region. It is striking that in the twenty-first century nobody seems to question the choice of an angel. Is that good or bad?
English speaking actors are a superstitious lot. It is considered the height of bad manners and bad luck to say the title of Shakespeare’s play MacBeth’ in a theatre. Actors will always refer to it as ‘The Scottish play’. If some uncultured fool does so, all the other actors will refer to another Shakepseare play Hamlet and quote ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’ as an antidote.
Whether or not angels exist is not the business of this weekly letter, but rather the remarkable endurance of angel symbolism in our culture and other cultures. Only one other ancient symbol seems to transcend geographical and cultural frontiers and that is the dragon which is found as far apart as China and Wales.
Do we still dream of flying? And if so, where to?
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2007-07-19 10:00:00 +0200
Copyright (C) ITT (http://www.itt.es) and Planet Lingua (http://www.lingua.es)
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Hi everyone.
Even though the article is not about to believe in angels or not, my point of view is that it is fantastic to have faith in something, to make our life better and especially for the believers make their life full of feelings.
Definitely the most important issue is that in every single place there is something that make people trust n it which at the time works as a symbol.
The word “angel” has a different meanings, even though you are not a believer it is a word that everybody agrees sounds good and passes the good vibes to the owner.It is a well known fact that is used in different places, films, books,legends, etc
It is also mentioned in the article how important is the Dragon for Chinese people,which in this case works exactly as the angels in many different cultures, every celebration turns around this symbols, New years eve and stuff.
Greetings
I love the idea of angels and the feeling of “protection” I get when I see one (I mean a statue or picture). I wonder though .. why do many angels have only one wing? I’ve seen one-winged angels in Italy, and here in Spain. If it broke off of a statue, then why didn’t someone fix it? Does it mean something? Historically does it have a meaning? I call them broken angels and it makes me sad to see them – there can’t be anything worse than being an angel with only one wing. What do you think?
Greetings from London!
A Californian architecture professor and critic, coincidentally based in Los Angeles, by the way, wrote articles for the magazine I worked for, back in Madrid. She had a TENDENCY to get heavy and convoluted and to start going off on a tangent. My editor-in-chief told me to tell her to please stay on track and not talk about the sex of the angels. I did just that. I told her, in English, not to talk about the sex of the angels. My officemates had a good laugh for days. But what indeed, pray tell, is the sex of the angels?
Hello from England!
I imagine my dead baby cousin with wings and he is just like a cherub of Renaissance and Baroque paintings. Maybe he can be my guardian angel. He was born in Los Angeles and he died and is buried there, in the City of Angels.
Oscar,
That is a sensitive and intelligent thought.
Perhaps God loved your cousin so much He wanted him home this year. Sometimes I think life is like a tapestry From behind all you can see are loose threads and random colours. Only when you look at the front of the tapestry can you see the design and the pattern. Only from the front it makes sense. Maybe life on earth is all behind the tapestry. One day we’ll see things really clearly!
Gina,
Why would angels need to be male or female? They don’t need to have babies.
Maybe they have the best characteristics of both men and women!
In the south of El Retiro park stands the Monument to the Fallen Angel, who I understand must be Satan himself (herself?). I used to rollerblade around it. Spooky monument!
Actually I don’t believe in angels or in any other spiritual beings. I think the point is that people need to believe in something higher than them. Discouraged people need another being above them to trust in, because their life is hard, long and boring and everyone thinks that there should be another kind of superior life. They want and need to believe in angels. It’s a sort of mirage or an illusion that allow people to put their hopes in it.
But…, angels are a beautiful invention, aren’t they? If it had been only for the literature, sculptures and paintings would have been worth it to create them.
Paola,
There is some doubt about Satan being the Fallen Angel. Lucifer, whose name means ‘Morning Star’, was, according to traditional stories, the most beautiful of all the Angels. He rebelled and lost and hence ‘fell’.
Satan was the snake in the Garden of Eden.
Confused? Me too. Best to get out the roller-blades and skate around the issue.
Toni,
I agree. The existence or not of angels does not take away their immense beauty. Either way they are a cause for optimism for the human spirit.
Question! Are fairies angelic?
Hi, everyone,
I believe in Angels. I think there is people that live as Angels, helping other people, and taking care about us. I believe in live after death, and Angels can be lived or dead.
Angels are universal because everywhere you can find good people and bad people. It is a human condition.
If Angels don’t exist, only the idea of Angels is so beautiful that is as if they could exist.
Greetings.
Conchi Calvo
Hello,
I belive than angels are persons that had over ours lifes, generally they don´t stay with us many time, but they do better ours moments.
I don´t think that The Fallen Angel is spooky; he only make an error and was expelled, I make many errors in my life and so learn.
Regards
María
...a post-lunch glimpse at the weeklyletter site to see what’s what…
and it’s made me think of “angel cake” – the brain’s craving some sugar I think! – and a film I saw recently based on the book “A Guide to Recognising your Saints”. I got as far as typing the name into the browser before realising that we’re talking “angels” not “saints”. As for fairies, I’m thinking of cakes again!
More seriously (for as long as it lasts!...) other ancient symbols that seem to “transcend geographical and cultural frontiers” :stars, pyramids…birds, the sun and moon.
The thing about stars, pyramids,birds, the sun and moon etc is that we can all see them. But we can’t all see angels and dragons. How did the Welsh and Chinese have the same idea of a flying, scaly beast that breathes fire?
Could it be a primaeval memory of a real beast?